Saturday, 25 March 2017

Merseyside Anzio Campaign: Game 2 German Heer attacking Yugoslav Partisans in Point Defence

Game Two seemed like a tricky proposition, as I've only faced Partisans twice before and both times my elite Fallschirmjagers got decimated. Added to the fact the that the central objective (Carrocetto Station) of the three they'd be defending was worth 3 VPs opposed to the other 1Vp for the two flanks, meant I'd have to capture it.

On my right, the hill had an objective held by 10 reg partisans with an SMG and LMG and an air observer. It would also have a booby trap in front of it.

The Station objective had an MMG on each floor, 5 partisans to the left of it behind the embankment, and air observer behind to the right and 2nd Lt behind to the left. A booby trap

The third objective was on my left flank with a 2nd Lt adjacent, veteran partisans on upper floor of nearby house and the pair of snipers upstairs in the two houses forward on my left. Luke opted to put many units on ambush, but not his snipers or Air observers... My sniper went on my extreme right where I would be out of range on Luke snipers but had two air observer targets.

With the set up complete, I rolled for the Preparatory Bombardment, which came in (I often roll a 1 for that). The end result was quite horrific for Luke, with eight units having two pins, one on one pin, and the officer and air observer behind the Station dying. The only partisans unscathed were the outflanking force in the hills, being hunted by the SS cavalry...

TURN 1 With many Partisan units ambushing but out of range or sight and heavily , I had the pick of the dice. The Cavalry went down, then I brought on the filed car advancing up the road on my left with the Goliath team and flammenwerfer in it. The flamethrower team then advanced out and liberally doused the top floor immolating the sniper team there...

I opted to move the Goliath team out a bit but not launch it yet, my three Heer squad came up left, centre and on the right, while the heavy gun and tractor took the small hill on my right corner. The Sniper put a pinon the surviving air observer, who shrugged of the effects of bombardment and sniper pin off to call in a strike against my right flank Heer unit (as more by luck than design, the building ruins on the right obscured the artillery from the observers vision... While some Partisan units rallied, most remained on ambush despite their pins.

TURN 2
The air strike came in and the German target hit the deck. Nice that in V2, there is a slight tweak in that every unit within 6" of the plane marker (up to18" from target unit) and D6" of the target unit take D3-1 pins... Hadn't noticed that before. Sadly for Luke, the artillery escaped with no pins, and the target Heer unit only lost 3 men to the strafing fighter..

My first activation was the Goliath team, who lost a man to the veterans in the targeted house...

However, it lost a track crossing the railway...

The blue discs represent the Partisan Booby traps/ If you haven't faced them before, any enemy unit that move within 6" requires a dice roll. On a 1-3, the booby trap is a dud. 4-5, it doesn't activate yet, and on a 6 the unit that activated it takes heavy howitzer hit.. In other words, they can be very nasty, as my Fallschirmjager remember!

My two Heer squads on left and centre left were supported by the flamethrower, 1st Lt and Goliath with the field car. On my right, the heavy howitzer and tractor are covered by the sniper in the ruins, a Heer squad and the BMW75. With so much open ground in front of the station, I had opted to try and pincer the partisans...

As below, the partisans had a good mutually supporting centre...

However, they still had pins from the prelim bombardment which hampered any return fire towards my troops.

The Heavy howitzer missed the partisan unit on the hill, but the BMW 75 and sniper added pins...

TURN 3
The first activation say the heavy artillery switch targets to the MMG team in the Station, and scoring 15 hits levelled the building, razing it to ruins and taking out both MMG team... Luke was down to 50% of his dice, and understandably gutted, but he persevered, killing one member of the flamethrower team with the veterans on my left who had ran into the building the previous turn.

I advanced the field a car and goliath team towards the last sniper, the Goliath team ironically setting off the mine and dying, while the 4" template clipped the filed car but only rolled a one on the damage chart...

The flammenwerfer operator who had held firm previously promptly fubarred, fortunately running away... Or unfortunately, as the partisan sniper took him out...

On the right, the sniper killed a partisan and BMW75 advanced, fortunately the booby trap there proving to be a dud and took 4 of the communists down.

The Partisans shrugged of the pins and advanced, but didn't damage the BMW 75

The 5 man partisan squad advanced into the ruins to maintain the objective and bring fire to bear on their left... Sadly for Luke, his outflankers failed to show up despite them ignoring -ve modifiers as he rolled 11.

Even worse, tired of chasing shadows in the hills, the SS galloped to the sounds of the fighting, running on ready to overwhelm the right flank...

TURN 4

With the first activation coming up in my favour, the SS charged in from under 6"... With the V2 rules meaning I had a respectable one attack each rather than an absurd amount, I still felt confident against peasants in the open...

So that would be two kills, with 6 SMG attacks back at me....

Until Luke pointed out they have tough fighters now...

That's better, though I still lost a man to the solo Bolshevik leader... I didn't consolidate towards the right objective, as wanted to pressure the Station and moved 9" towards that... The centre left was looking good, though the sniper was still a pain, with Luke adamant he'd take down the fascist officer.

Alas, he rolled a 3 and due to being a solo sniper (as Id clipped his wingman earlier with two units of Heer pockmarking the building) missed.

TURN 4
Turn 4 and the Partisan veterans took a direct hit from the heavy howitzer, obliterating the building again. The Germans certainly weren't worried about taking the town intact!

The next dice went to Luke. His outflanking SMG squad came on behind the SS cavalry, but the veterans only lost one man as they were at long range. The BMW dropped a few and the sniper took one out.

The centre squad stormed the snipers building, jackboots tramping in downstairs while the left squad went after the hiding Lt by the left flank objective, by the fence, alone with the veterans gone. The vehicles and howitzer all went down, the howitzer having done its job.

TURN 5

The Germans had the first dice, and the SS advanced, dismounting and despite the shelter of the ruins, the pointblank firing killed all 5 partisans in the remnants of the station.

The Heer squad charged upstairs taking out the lone sniper, while the German officer ran over adjacent to the Station. The left flank Heer squad peppered the partisan officer killing him.

TURN 6
The Partizans only had one dice left, but it came out first and they failed their order test. The SS moved onto the Station objective, with the officer

The left Heer unit took the left objective by the rail crossing, giving two objectives to the Germans

The lone partisan unit left kept their objective, appropriately enough, the hills the Yugoslavs left to take the town...

Afterthoughts: Not really much to say, the Preparatory bombardment was simply lethal and Luke was up against it from then on in... By start of turn 3 he had lost half his dice and I'd not lost anything. The heavy howitzer hit two buildings and took out three units, and the partisan booby traps weren't as bad as last time out. One thing to point out in fairness to Luke, his forces didn't have the manpower due to a dice restriction of 12 for the 1000pts force, but we're rethinking that for the campaign. Partisans and Soviets suffer adversely from such limits, even if well intentioned (In our last campaign, a lot of the guys were still new to Bolt Action)... At the minute, after two rounds, the Germans are winning the campaign by a good distance, a couple more rounds and they'll be back on the beaches at Anzio

2 comments:

A thoroughly enjoyable read Brian. Still just getting into this game, having played a handful of practice games on my own to get to grips with the rules. A campaign sounds fun. Anzio brings back memories :-)